HISD trustee resigns from job she 'loved'

Houston school board
trustee who led the effort to ban corporal punishment and served two years as the board's president, announced her resignation Thursday.

First elected in 1995 to represent the district's far-west region, Bricker used Thursday's board meeting to announce she is leaving to devote more time to her family and her education consulting business. Her four-year term was to expire in November 2005.

"Except for my family, I have never loved anything more than my work for HISD," Bricker said. "I am one of the few individuals in the world that has the self-satisfaction in knowing I was a member of the HISD board that made a difference."

The board must now decide whether to appoint a replacement or call a special election, most likely this November. Trustees will have 30 days to decide once Bricker's resignation takes effect on May 31.

Most trustees said the resignation caught them by surprise.

"The amount of institutional knowledge that Laurie Bricker carries with her about this district is unbelievable," Trustee Harvin Moore said.

"She reminded me of my student body president in high school," Hoffman said. "She was the schools' No. 1 fan and the schools' No. 1 cheerleader."

Board President Karla Cisneros, who sometimes clashed with Bricker on policy issues, commended the "energy, passion, creativity and expertise" she brought to the board. The two disagreed recently over whether their husbands -- both architects -- should do business with the district. Cisneros called it a potential conflict of interest; Bricker said she saw nothing wrong as long as she abstained from votes to award design contracts.

In January, Bricker abstained from the vote that gave Cisneros the presidency, saying she would have preferred someone else.

Bricker set out almost immediately after joining the nine-member board to ban teachers from paddling students in the district. She often told the story of the time in 1972, while a teacher's assistant in Austin, she watched a black student at a predominantly white school endure a paddling. When she asked why he didn't cry, Bricker says, the student showed her the scars he'd received from beatings at home and told her he didn't want to let the assistant principal know he'd been hurt.

HISD's corporal punishment ban took effect in 2001. Bricker, the board's president in 1999 and 2002, said she's proud of the district's progress in her eight-plus years on the board.

In her time, HISD reintroduced standardized testing, gave individual campuses more decision-making autonomy and saw big gains in student performance, Bricker said.

Bricker also said the district has fallen short of some of the goals she envisioned, including earning a "recognized" accountability rating from the state. "HISD is still not a recognized district, when other districts around us with similar needs and challenges have met that goal or exceeded it."

She called on the remaining board members to pursue a partnership with Metro to take 1,200 school buses off the road and to offer Advanced Placement and gifted classes on every campus.

She also issued a few challenges.

"I challenge the board to look at more creative ways to reach every child, even if it means literally breaking up what we know as HISD," Bricker said.

For the district to improve substantially, she said, trustees might have to consider drastic measures, including dividing the district. But she doubts the board would seriously consider the idea.

She also asked that trustees work together.

"I challenge the board to put aside individual agendas," she said, "and work once again for the greater good."